In this study, we introduce a method combining the inductively coupled plasma and wet etching process with SiO2 microspheres to fabricate the nanoinverted pyramid (NIP) structures of a GaN template. GaN epitaxial layers and GaN-based multiple quantum well light emitting diode (LED) structures with a conventional single GaN buffer and an NIP GaN template were proposed and fabricated. The NIP GaN template can significantly reduce dislocation density and thus improve the crystal quality of the GaN epitaxial layers. By using an NIP GaN template, we can enhance LED output power by 32%. (C) 2009 The Electrochemical Society. [DOI: 10.1149/1.3240596]